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Power and Position in the World City System: Outdegree
Source: [academic paper]
Relying on the concepts of command and control centres, Alderson and Beckfield produce a comprehensive empirical assessment of global cities. In the course of the year 2000, they analyse 3,692 cities from the perspective of 446 multinational companies (MNCs) active in over 50 industries and their branch locations (taken from the Fortune Global 500 MNCs).
Alderson and Beckfield argue that valued and directed measures of relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries allow for an accurate ranking of global cities based on the network connectivity calculated.
Power in the World City System
The outdegree of a city is a straightforward measure of influence: the cities which host the headquarters that control the most branches are considered to be cities that have captured more control functions of the world economy (i.e. which display more “world city-ness” than others, in the words of Alderson and Beckfield). The results are highly skewed as the Global 500 are headquartered in just 125 cities in 2000. 3,567 cities out of 3,692 therefore send no ties at all. Tokyo, New York, Paris and London top the list. Interestingly, cities usually considered to be global cities such as Miami, Singapore and Sao Paolo are absent.
Prestigious cities are those sought out by other cities, those which are chosen over others. The measure of indegree is a straightforward way of estimating prominence and prestige with the number of ties a city receives (the number of branches it hosts). Results suggest that a handful of the cities identified as most influential are also the most prestigious. They include New York, London, Paris and Tokyo. The authors argue that these cities are the basing points in the organization and articulation of world production and markets.
The main conclusion of their rankings is that results depend on the type of power under consideration. A powerful city can be an influential one or a prestigious one. “The relation between headquarter and subsidiary cities is thus not exclusively one of metropolis and satellite (…) There is a fair degree of deference at work in the world city system as well” (Alderson and Beckfield 2004: 827).
